Reading body language when you negotiate can be very insightful and very beneficial. It gives the negotiator that can interpret the thoughts and gestures of his negotiation opponent an additional advantage. Once you’re able to read body language, with a high degree of accuracy, you’ll be on your way to achieving more favorable negotiation outcomes.

In my writings I’ve outlined the value of observing non verbal signals, also called body language, when negotiating. Many have asked, what does it really take to become keen at reading body language? To which I’ve responded, it takes practice, good observation skills, the ability to listen more than you speak, and a willingness and desire to really get good at reading body language.

I’m sure you’ve experienced situations when you knew what someone was going to say, before they said it. How did that occur? How were you able to tap into their mental state of mind and extract the thought they were about to pronounce, before they spoke? It occurred as the result of you being mentally synchronized with that individual. I’m sure you’ve also heard someone say to you, I had a feeling you were going to say that. A feeling … what aura were you generating to allow someone to hear your unspoken thought, to see into the hidden chambers of your mind, to experience that kinesthetic connection, before your announcement?

As we think about what we’re in the process of conveying to someone else, our bodies prepare to deliver that message by going through and evaluation of how that message will be delivered. At that point, in a nanosecond, our bodies go through the process of mentally delivering the message and imagining the response. All of this happens, literally, at the speed of thought. I’m sure at times in your life you’ve been told to hide your feelings and at other times, don’t hide your feelings. Your feelings about a subject convey emotions and your emotions can be read when you negotiate.

Years ago, I participated in a study that pointed out the ease with which you can tap into someone’s thoughts and emotions by observing their body language. In that study, two individuals sat straight up facing one another, with their knees approximately a few inches from each other. The first subject was instructed to close her eyes and mentally enact a situation, with the degree of realism as though that situation was really occurring. The second subject was instructed to mimic the actions of the first person, which included breathing to the same rhythm of the first person. After a short period of time, in most cases, the second subject was able to feel and announce with a high degree of accuracy, what the first subject was experiencing. I walked out of that study thinking, ‘Wow that was mind expanding.’

Below are two exercises you can practice to enhance your ability to become more perceptive and enhance your ability to read body language …

· Sit in a quiet environment and listen to the sounds around you. Take note of what you hear and see. You may be thinking if the environment is quiet, I’m not going to hear anything. That’s not true. Even though there’s quietness in the environment, there are still sounds to be heard. Can you hear them? Once you begin to hear the sounds of quietness, your listening skills will become sharper and your negotiation skills will become keener.

· In a very noisy and active environment, focus on one conversation or activity that is slightly out of your hearing range, but close enough that you can make out some of the conversation that’s occurring between the participants. See how well you can focus on that situation while blocking out other activities and noises going on around you. Once you’re able to mentally hone your observation skills, to the degree that you can block out all of the external noises around you, your observation skills will begin to become more impeccable.

Once you become good at deciphering the unspoken word that conveys a hidden meaning, you’ll be on your way to getting more out of every negotiation session. You’ll also notice that your negotiation outcomes will become more favorable to all parties involved … and everything will be right with the world.

The negotiation lessons are …

• Before your very next big negotiation session, take the time to learn how to read body language more accurately. The benefit of doing so lies in the outcome.
• When you negotiate allow your negotiation partner the opportunity to look inside your mind by showing him your mental makeup. If you show your state of mind through your body language and he observes it accurately, he’ll think he’s uncovering an advantage. The thought then becomes who’s really at an advantage. The answer is, you are, because you know the purpose of your thought and in which direction you wish the negotiation to travel.
• Make reading body language a game. Play it often and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your abilities will be enhanced and the benefits you’ll reap at the negotiation table.

As rightly stated by M.K. Sehgal and Vandana Khetarpal in Business Communication, “While it is one of the easiest things in the world for some people to stand in front of a group of people and to talk, there are many who look scared and ready to rush for a cover at the sight of an audience. The difference in the categories may arise, not from the difference in their knowledge content but from the difference in their Attitude. Even an experienced speaker in the beginning of his speaking career, might have faced the problem of “nervousness”, “butterflies in the stomach”, “increased heartbeats”, “shaking legs”, “shaking voice” and “forgetfulness” which are most obvious signs of nervousness which badly affects the Business Presentation. A Presentation is delivery to a small knowledgeable audience with a concrete, clear and preciously defined purpose.

Here are some guidelines to do a successful Presentation:-

1. Decide your Goal and Topic of Presentation: The Goal in making a presentation could be to persuade, educate, convince and win the approval of the audiences thereby achieving the desired results, considering the occasion and objective of the speaker. Format the sequence and pace of the presentation so that the audience can understand it easily. A good impact can’t be made unless you are through with the topic. Giving the audience relevant and unexpected facts beyond the topic norms adds value. Presentation requires knowledge of the subject, confidence and experience.

2. Analyze the Audiences: Know who is going to be the audience and what they want from you. The age, gender, nationality, educational background and experiences of the audience present have a great relevance to the Presentation. While answering the questions direct your remarks to the entire audiences. That way, you will keep everyone focused, not just questioner. Speak with conviction as if you really believe in what you are saying and persuade the audience effectively.

3. Decide the Form of Presentation: You should decide whether you wish to achieve the objective by a Formal or Non-Formal mode, i.e. either by Reading/Memorizing/Extemporaneous (you can select any of the following mode or combination of two). You need to decide whether the move is going to be from the periphery to the core of the subject matter or from the core to the periphery based in the length of the script.

4. Identify the Audio-Visual Aid required: Different types of Audio-Visual supports like Slides, Video Tapes, VCD’s, PowerPoint’s as presentation, Software, Flip Chart, Writing Boards; through which text, graphs, figures and cartoons can be easily drawn enhances the quality of presentation. They are meant to emphasise the most vital points of the presentation in a unique manner. While preparing the visuals, the designer should take extra care in the selection of colour, fonts and visual aids for the images. Certain colour combinations can be irritating to the eyes, while others are pleasing, apart from learning the subject, the audiences should also enjoy the presentation.

5. Know the Venue and the Equipment: Be familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive ahead of time, walk around the speaking area and sit in the seats, seeing the set up from the audiences perspective will help you decide where to stand, what direction to face and how loudly you will need to speak. Decide in advance what if the projector dies? Or the Computer Crashes? Or the Co-Drive doesn’t work? Or your CD gets steeped on? Have a printed copy of your notes with you and carry a backup of your presentation on a USB flash or E-Mail yourself a copy.

6. Rehearse the Presentation: Plan the Opening/Main Body/Closing of the Presentation. Practice your deliver over and over until you remove the distractions including nervous tics and uncomfortable pauses. Make sure that your Presentation can run on any computer. TO FAIL TO PREPARE IS TO PREPARE TO FAIL. After a Concert, a fan rushed up to famed violinist Fritzkreisler and gushed, “I’d give up my whole life to play as beautifully as you did.” Kreisler replied, “I Did”.

7. Avoid Information Overloading: PowerPoint expert Cliff Atkinson, author of “Beyond Bullet Points”, says, “When you overload your audience, you shut down the dialogue that is important part of decision-making. When you remove interesting but irrelevant words and pictures from the screen you can increase the audience’s ability to remember the information by 189% and the ability to apply the information by 109%”, recommends Atkinson. Clarify in advance how much time you will have and be sure to leave time for questions.

8. Effective Body Language: The speaker needs to break the ice, gain acceptance and capture attention of the audience’s right at the start of making the opening, spell binding. It is rightly said, “First Impression is the Last impression”. A Presentable Clean and Impressive appearance is of utmost importance for the speaker. Confident voice and posture, effective eye contact and meaningful gestures make up a good body language. Never speak to the slides. Many presenters watch their presentation rather than their audience. Turn to your audiences and make eye contact. Allow yourself and audiences a little time to reflect and think.

9. Preparation of Handouts and Assessment Form: Handouts are basically printed material given to the audience before beginning of the Presentation, it should be extremely well prepared as the participants are going to take them back after the session and probably share the same with colleagues. With an intention to get Feedback from the audience, as how well speakers presentation was received, a questionnaire is circulated among the audience, immediately after completing the programme and the members are requested to fill up the same. It should elaborate on the Level of Acceptance of the speaker (grading on various parameters such as delivery, ideas, use of visual aids, handling the groups, empathy, listening, expectation form the presentations and to what extent were they met), scope of improvement and suggestions, if any.

10. Be a Good Active Listener: Good Speakers not only inform their audience, they also listen to them. It involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand. It is a form of accepting which prepares for positive results. Active Listening involves Hearing, Understanding, Interpretation, Concentration and Judgement. It requires commitment and Personal Discipline whereas; Supportive Listening involves Empathy which is the key ingredient of helping in the Listening Process. It is the understanding of another’s feelings.

DO’S of a Successful Presentation:

1. Give an overview or agenda (i.e., “tell them what you are going to tell them”)

2. At the end, summarize the highpoints.

3. Use Humour, but make absolutely sure it is appropriate humour.

4. Finish on Time. It is better to finish slightly early than to overrun.

5. Thank the audience for their time and attention.

6. Have a contingency back-up plan, i.e. Plan B and Plan C.

7. Speak Clearly.

8. Deliberately pause at key points.

9. Enjoy Yourself.

For Visual Aids:-

10. Use Key Phrases.

11. Limit Punctuations and Avoid All Capital Letters.

12. Avoid Fancy Fonts.

13. Use Contrasting Colour for Text and Background.

14. Use Slide Design Templates Effectively.

15. Limit the number of slides.

16. Use Photos, Charts and Graphs.

17. Avoid excessive Use of Slide Transition and Animation.

DON’T of a Successful Presentation:

1. Read the material from the slide/notes.

2. Use more than 36 words per slide.

3. Use Paragraphs, use bullet points as “talking points”.

4. Use improper grammar, phrases or a sentence that doesn’t make sense, no misspelled words.

5. Move too fast or too far from the audience but move around to keep the audiences attention.

6. Be afraid to say, “I don’t know” if you aren’t sure of an answer to a question.

7. Hold objects in your hands, but do use you hands and arms for gestures.

8. Whisper or Shout.

9. Rush or Talk deliberately slowly.

10. Rely completely on your slide projector to run the show.

Let me conclude by a small anecdote:

Eleanor Roosevelt was a shy young girl who was terrified at the thought of speaking in public. But with each passing year, she grew in Confidence and Self Esteem. She once said, “No one can make you feel inferior, unless you agree with it.” Finally, the most important 3 things to know about making a Great Presentation are PLANNING, PREPARATION AND PRACTICE.

Everybody is in a rush. A rush to do this or that. To get up in the morning, to make breakfast, to dress, to go to school, to work, to go to the gym. In fact everybody is in a hurry to do many things which means everyone has an enormous amount of activities all day long. We manage to convince ourselves that everything we do is all important – and yet somehow as the day ends we are exhausted and are left with a vague feeling that we did not accomplish everything we set out to do.

The reason for this is quite simple. We live in a society that measures success on the basis of accomplishment – and accomplishment is measured on the basis of how much we do or how much we get. In turn we have conditioned ourselves to always think of the next move. To accomplish and get more you have to do more, so there is always something else. Another move, another set of actions.

This is where the problems start. We focus our thoughts and energy onto the next thing and not on what we are actually supposed to be doing.

When we focus on the next step, the next activity or our next action, we forget to concentrate and to live 100% that one thing we are doing in that specific moment in time. Pope John Paul II once said that we should learn from the past, plan for the future, but live the present – or words to that effect.

These are words of wisdom that should guide our every moment.

There are a few implications here, such as:

By learning from the past:

• you should learn to avoid mistakes and more importantly repeat those things that brought success or triumphant moments.
• neither dwell nor relive the past. The past is gone – finito, kaput. We must learn to let it go.
• treasure the good and the bad. Treasure it, not gloat over it or sink with it.

Plan for the future:

• set your sights high and aim for the sky.
• apply yesterdays lessons to plan for tomorrow.
• your plan will map out the road you must follow.

Live the present:

• every journey starts with one step. Today you will take the steps you must on the road you mapped out for the future.
• each moment, in other words your continuous present, must be lived will full concentration, with full dedication and passion. If you are with someone else, your child for example, your full focused energy and attention should be 100% dedicated to that person in that moment in time.
• a focused present, strengthened with the lessons of the past and the target for the future will result in less mistakes or negative results. It will always generate an action motivated from a freer perspective.

When you start applying this way of life you will find in the beginning that you are set in your ways so change will not be easy. If, however, you persist for a short while, you will find that it gets easier each time.

Then you will be surprised to find that everything gets better; not in a magical sense, after all there are no magical formulas, but in a real sense.

1. Your day to day activities that are driven by your dedicated and focused attention to what you are doing as you are doing it, will show greater results. These results will go beyond, and this is the important part, beyond achieving things, to achieving wonderful things in terms of your relationship with others. One of the amazing things about people is that when they feel they are important in your eyes – and this will happen as you live the present when your are with them – they will try to give the best of themselves in return.
2. Your past will begin to be made up of all these “presents” you are living day to day.
3. Your future turns into your present and then your past, and all under that path with a heart you are taking, today.